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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25848589">The Animal Within</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med'>Lyssandra_Med</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One-Shot [61]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - No War, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff, I'm stealing the whole Dæmon thing but nothing else, Porn Without Plot, Same Age, Smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:34:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,484</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25848589</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione is surprised when someone can see the hyena by her side.<br/>She grows into it though, especially when she meets a young girl with a shrike on her shoulder.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One-Shot [61]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>151</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Animal Within</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written because why not<br/>mild-editing</p><p>1) no war<br/>2) Bella &amp; Hermione are same age<br/>3) There are soulmates<br/>4) Dæmon's are reflections of soulmate's soul / personification</p><p>I think that's all that needs to be said, might continue this one day</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There were many things in Hermione’s life that she found odd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Phaedra was certainly chief among them but even then Hermione knew that she herself was odd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she also knew how to hide all that oddness, learned it right away once it became clear it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>normal.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her parents had humoured her for long enough. The constantly shifting </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘imaginary friend’</span>
  </em>
  <span> was no longer a funny little quirk when she reached a certain age. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The doctors that they brought her to were wrong about what Phaedra was but she knew what they wanted her to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Phaedra sat patiently by her side and helped her work it all out. From then on it was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘silly little thing’</span>
  </em>
  <span> that she had indulged in during her earliest years, and then never brought up again. She knew to keep quiet even when she could easily see Phaedra messing with someone other than herself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Other</span>
  </em>
  <span> people might not have been able to see Phaedra but that didn’t mean she couldn’t interact with the world if she wanted to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mouth closed, eyes open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A nudge against a leg here, a swift bite there. Bullies stuck dealing with mosquitoes that never quit, birds that pecked at them from the cover of darkness, a pest that never seemed to go away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It never really occurred to Hermione that she might not be alone. It never rose to the forefront of her attention that she might not be all that special. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d never thought that there could be other people just like her, and it wasn’t until her eleventh birthday when Phaedra settled into her final form that Hermione began to question it. It was confirmed that very night by the arrival of an older woman who had shown up with a peregrine falcon named Anemoi on her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A talking falcon that had </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen</span>
  </em>
  <span> Phaedra and then said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Hello.’</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She was a witch.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Phaedra was now a spotted hyena, hulking as she stood there with a lazy grin that fit her new maw of sharp and dangerous teeth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was an interesting turn of events for sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The train ride up to Hogwarts was delightfully chaotic, all things considered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Railcar after railcar was filled up with different students and their attendant Dæmons, a constant sight that left Hermione in a state of shock and Phaedra perpetually amused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they were all nice and the niceness felt like something more than she could have ever asked for, especially considering the absolute Hell that public schooling had shoved her into. That she - </span>
  <em>
    <span>and then by extension everyone else</span>
  </em>
  <span> - could see the Dæmons around them was a realization she needed to get used to though, and it took the most time. So often before Phaedra had been ignored and Hermione had gone out of her way to give Phaedra space to move or run, and now it was all turned around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone could see her and could also see that she was bound to Hermione. Phaedra ruled wherever she went and Hermione bristled with pride at Phaedra’s sudden - </span>
  <em>
    <span>and deserved</span>
  </em>
  <span> - recognition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All the other students made way for her as they arrived, some of them quite rightly intimidated by the hyena and others curious. All of them were parting, standing aside and looking down as she sniffed and poke in corridors and cubbies, Hermione following behind and burning with the happiness she felt within herself. She fell in step, secured herself with a chin held high in the air and nothing to dampen her mood as she observed all the other students.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So many animals were all around them and in such a wide variety that Hermione might have thought it a zoo on rails. There was a macaw that groomed itself from a lovely perch, a green beetle that had decided to settle itself atop a throat as if it were an ancient piece of jewellery. A mastiff that seemed to want to smell everyone, its booming call echoing down the corridor. Snakes and rodents co-mingled with one another and vain peacocks called out to those they already knew. Languid foxes skittered and screamed at one another, birds flew about with definite precision as they dodged bodies and closing doors. Owls, mice, there was even a little toad and a particularly large beaver named Persimmons.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a crush of life and yet, Hermione realized with a smile that slipped to a half-frown, no one was touching. Dæmons slinked to the sides of the aisles or made themselves incorporeal for just a moment to avoid an errant touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But not Phaedra, and not Hermione. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And no one else, at least until she reached the little raven-haired girl at the back of the train.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, hurry up!” Bellatrix yelled down at Hermione, her voice a whip-crack of pure delight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hermione smiled and moved to follow as best she could while climbing up over old trunks and wardrobes that looked to have been created in the last century. Eris flew off past her ear and towards the soaring heights of the Room, her twittering a voice of encouragement in a tone that Hermione had come to recognize intimately over the past seven years. The little shrike wasn’t so little anymore, and would have been intimidating if Hermione had only just met her. The banding around her eyes was turning deep and dark, the little nails on her feet no longer something simple but true talons that pricked and caught at flesh and cloth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eris had grown up, and Bellatrix with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hermione grinned and scrabbled up over the last of the wardrobes in her way before finding herself situated atop a massive grouping of tables that seemed to have been laid down purposefully. They were each arranged right next to one another and at the same height, the mimic of a floor, and they were all so wedged down tight and secure that she could practically sprint across them all. Bellatrix had decided to park herself in the centre of them with a mound of constantly rising cushions in varying styles and fabrics. They were being hauled up with a spell and soaring in groups of three or four to fall back down into the massive pile as Bellatrix worked her magic. Hermione watched and smiled as Bellatrix continued to work, Eris flying out of the way of the incoming missiles as they soared up over the lip of the mound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Phaedra crept up from behind Hermione and nudged against her leg until she’d taken the hint and moved towards where Bellatrix stood, back to her and arms a constantly moving whirl. The hyena Dæmon had grown just as well as Eris in the intervening years since she’d settled into her form, sometimes from fights and other times from triumph. As Bellatrix had continued to build her inner confidence and fall into her self-chosen role of a mischievous trickster who could break someone’s bones, so too did Phaedra grow into herself. She hulked wherever she went now and people genuinely stepped away in respect for her might and the human attached to her, the same purposeful distance given to Phaedra as Harry’s stag, Actaeon, or Ginny’s lion, Parthenopaeus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nice, and if it allowed Hermione to leverage some of other people's fears then she delighted in it, if not directly engaging with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trix, I think we’ve enough cushions,” whispered Hermione, her voice a sing-song tone as she pulled at Bellatrix’s free hand to turn the witch around. The dark hair that she had first fallen in love with was just as beautiful as it was upon their first meeting; a deep and lovely shade so stark and haunting that it ate up all the light that hit it, sparkling along the edges where it curled and wreathed her beautiful face. Hermione leaned in and traced Bellatrix’s lips with her own as she wound an arm around the girl’s waist. They fell forward into one another and then down into a pile of gangly limbs and touselled hair, no one in the world except for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their kiss fell apart with panting breath and the sound of Phaedra falling down atop a chosen spot along the periphery of the mound. She’d keep watch as she always did, alert and well suited to her chosen task.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No need to worry over Phaedra, and so Hermione didn’t waste any time with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead she leaned in and kissed her grinning lover once again as she let warm hands trace out the body underneath of her. Her palms slid beneath the hem of a starched shirt and soon button after button fell pretty to her advances, the pale of Bellatrix’s cheeks giving way towards a flush of want and need, lip trapped by Hermione’s teeth and nails scratching at perfectly heated skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They parted and pulled away as Bellatrix leaned back into her mattress of cushions, body open and chest bared to the world. Hermione took but a second to appreciate the sight before leaning down to capture a stiffened nipple with her teeth and lips, smile pressing against Bellatrix’s flesh when her lover gasped out loudly in delight. The sound propelled Hermione forward and soon enough her free hand had captured the other stiffened bud atop Bellatrix's chest, fingers rolling in time with her mouth until she’d built a perfect little rhythm. Meek sounds escaped from Bellatrix’s throat as a howling laugh from Phaedra washed over them both, the emotions passing through their Dæmons and doubling back in on themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The truths of Dæmons - </span>
  <em>
    <span>and the mere fact that there were more than Phaedra in existence</span>
  </em>
  <span> - had been such a shock to Hermione when she first had her trip to Diagon, an hour spent in </span>
  <em>
    <span>Flourish &amp; Blotts</span>
  </em>
  <span> as she caught up on all that she had missed. From there she had found out the truth of them, and it had startled her so very much. A symbolic form taken upon their human’s eleventh birthday was enough of a shock that she had almost been unable to accept the other facts.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Soulmates were real.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They were real and for each and every one of them there was another - </span>
  <em>
    <span>and for others more than one</span>
  </em>
  <span> - person to complete them. For Hermione there was only Bellatrix, and dear Phaedra had taken on the form that best exemplified her lover-to-be’s soul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been a shock to realize Phaedra was tied to Bellatrix in her second year, a point of contention when the Slytherin had taken to annoying her in third, and now it was nothing but a soothing balm against her soul. Phaedra and Eris, mirrors to one another and them both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The love that Eris felt for them all settled down atop of Phaedra in the same moment that Hermione switched from taste to touch, a flood of perfect magic that bore down upon her soul and carried all that adoration with it. Her fingers moved with rapidity and desire, her hungry eyes watching as Bellatrix shrank back into herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no you don’t,” growled Hermione, her hands stilling until the witch below her had opened back up. “Eyes or nothing, understood?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bellatrix breathed in slowly before nodding, an explosion of love flowering within Hermione’s chest when the silver of her lover’s eyes was revealed yet again. She took her time with unwrapping Bellatrix, her hands only lingering as she pulled apart the few buttons that held Bellatrix’s skirt atop her hips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few moments later and Bellatrix was bare and keening, a moment more to have her sucking on a finger and just one more before that finger was circling against a nubbin of engorged flesh. Hermione kept her movement slow and purposeful, times to Bellatrix’s rapid breathing. Up and down, over and across, ghosting against where Bellatrix wanted her and enjoying the delightful sound of her lover’s tortured need.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dipped down again and pressed inwards, felt Belaltrix flex around her finger and then another, free hand attending to the flesh she’d left behind. A pounding gait was formed, the muscles of her fingers and hand growing warm as she picked up her speed to end with a quick completion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watched with frantically beating heart as Bellatrix bit down upon her bottom lip, eyes shutting tightly as she reached the zenith and Hermione nowhere near ready to stop or tell Bellatrix to open them. She kept her pace up as the flush in Bellatrix’s cheeks crept down her neck, the body beneath her squirming and hands clenching as Bellatrix fought to keep herself from touching Hermione.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, so pretty,” Hermione whispered, her tone just loud enough that Bellatrix could hear her amid the sudden racket of Phaedra’s cackle. “So beautiful. You want me to finish you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hermione slowed her pace and held steady as she waited on Bellatrix to answer. A second passed before Bellatrix shook her head, lips teased open to reveal the depths to which Hermione had sent her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-yes!” came the frenzied answer, husky and delightful with a curving smile to close it out. Hermione hummed her notice and nodded, complying with Bellatrix’s wish by suddenly exploding into movement. Fingers curved up towards the spongy flesh that held Bellatrix’s need in check, back and forth as the witch turned from a quiet murmur to needy whines. The fingers Hermione held atop Bellatrix’s clit circled and pressed, only a second more passing before Bellatrix’s legs closed shut with a violent thud as she fought to keep Hermione still within her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t work, or at least it didn’t work fully. Hermione was still given enough movement to tease and flex her fingers where they lay buried inside of her lover, up and down as she teased out gasps and moans from between beautiful lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hermione smiled and leaned in towards Bellatrix as she pulled her hand free, tracing a glistening trail against too warm skin. She the fingers down atop of Bellatrix’s bottom lip in a silent declaration of her instruction, waiting for the witch to get the hint. It took a second more before Bellatrix responded but when she did she swiped those fingers inside of her mouth and laved them with a perfect tongue. Hermione felt the sharpness of incisors against the pads of her fingers and pressed, pulling them out slowly as Bellatrix whined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assume this wasn’t all that you wanted to show me, was it Bella?” Hermione swiped her thumb against Bellatrix’s bottom lip, “We can do this in the dorms.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Far behind her Phaedra laughed, the sound loud and mirthful as Eris joined in with piercing chirrups. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bellatrix calmed and then grinned, equal parts herself and Phaedra, “Oh no, that’s not everything. Not even half as much as I wanted to do with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hermione responded with sounds of merriment as Bellatrix pulled her back down and claimed her with a searing kiss.</span>
</p>
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